Nightmares again

I woke up at 4am screaming. Lucky hotel walls tend to be thick. I haven’t had such a lucid nightmare in about a month (which is a long time, as these things go), so it did shake me. I called down to reception and asked them to restock the minibar – with chocolate, not with alcohol. I was thinking this was the opportune time to try and break my chocolate/nightmare habit, but I just didn’t have the energy. The nightmare took it all from me.

My mum was driving me home. I was begging her not to, as I knew Robert was angry and that he was going to get violent. I was crying in the car, and she was just ignoring me (she did a lot of that in real life too). As we got out of the car I managed to escape to my cousin Andie’s house. This would be the place that I would try to escape to in real life, also. Although it always ended with my mother marching me back to the car and screaming abuse at me all the way home. Andie is younger than me, so I knew she couldn’t do anything to help me, but I was clutching at straws.

A feature of these nightmares is that I am stuck living with my parents. So when I got to Andie’s house I asked if I could live with her. She said No. I asked if I could stay two weeks, and she said yes, so at least I had a reprieve. Then a few dream like things happened, (which often repeat themselves in my dreams) – getting lost in the house that has so many bedrooms, ending up at the beach (water features a lot in my dreams), and then the two weeks were up and I had to go home.

My parents, in real life, never let me have a key to the house. Even though I was always the first to get home, I would often pick up my little sister from after school care and I’d use her key (which had pretty elephants on it). On the days that I didn’t pick her up I had to wade through the garden and under the house to find the hidden spare key. In this nightmare the spare key wasn’t there. I was desperate to get into the house before my stepfather got home so I could hide in my room. Hoping maybe that he would leave me alone. But I had to wait for him to come home to let me into the house.

In the dream I don’t know what happened next. I know I just woke screaming.

Nightmares again

Note: sexual abuse content below

I’ve come down with a cold and am sleeping most of the day. Unfortunately that gives my subconscious plenty of opportunity to attack me with nightmares, and I’ve had some doozies.

The worst one so far has been my step-father fellating me while I scream at my mother “Watch!!”. Others have been normal in comparison; stuck living with them, stuck in a holiday house with them. And my step-father always making an appearance, either as a lead role or cameo.

My psychologist says I should try and write about them, but I don’t see the point. I don’t have anything to say. They are horrific. It takes me hours, and sometimes the whole day to recover from them. And I know I’ll just have another one when I go to sleep again.

Can’t be miserable if asleep

Well I learnt something yesterday: you can’t be miserable if you’re asleep.

I slept from 5am (I watched Ocean’s 11, 12 and 13) to 3pm and then again from 7pm to 10pm. Went to bed again at 2.30 and stayed awake for at most the first half hour of Gone in 60 seconds. (I’m trialling a new theory that depression can be addressed by adrenalin rushes such as from watching fast and furious type films). I started the Dexamethasone on Friday and haven’t had a nightmare since. SUCH a relief. I know they will start up again as soon as I stop, but three days without them is better than none.

I’m at work today and feeling okay. Able to work, so that’s a plus. There is even someone else in my cubicle today. I even managed to go out and buy pressies for my friends who looked after my pets at such short notice. Caring about others is always mutually exclusive with my depression, so I’m taking it as a good sign. Still craving chocolate though. LOTS of chocolate. And I’m having intrusive memories. I’ll be doing something utterly benign (like sticking labels on our books) and suddenly I’ll be at my grandmother’s garden and then back again. Weird. Annoying. Excruciating actually.

But, am looking up.

Not so miserable

Last night I forced myself to go out and ended up at a friend’s house at midnight crying at how down I had spiralled in such a short period of time. They didn’t know what to say, but then not many people do. Anyway, them sitting there saying nothing was better than patting my hand and going “it will all be alright”. That’s one of the most unhelpful things anyone can say. Obviously it’s not going to be alright. I’m depressed, not dumb.

Anyway last night I decided to put myself back on Dexamethasone (which was confirmed today as the correct decision by my psychiatrist) and I am feeling better. I had a migraine most of today, and there’s nothing like physical pain to kill mental pain. I even did quite a bit of work. Other than my continual eating I am almost back to normal – I even tidied the lounge room (all the other rooms are a mess – tomorrow I plan to tidy the kitchen).

It’s now 2.30am and I am watching Rage – all the video clips to all the angry songs I used to listen to when I was in my early twenties. Tool, Rage against the machine, Marilyn Manson, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Live etc. Maybe it’s just me, but there seem to be a few videos with child abuse themes. Or maybe that’s not right, it’s just I identify with these songs so very much (despite not listening to them for five odd years), and I identified with them back then, but back then I didn’t know why. It was all so obvious yet I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.

I miss you

Dear Andie,

I miss you. I accidentally found your blog today and the sound of you almost made me cry. Your wit, your spark, your anger, they are so much part of your family, that family that used to be mine. I see that you are even calling yourself the eldest grandchild now. It was like I never existed.

I think it would be easier for you if I never existed. Yet I do.

You told me that you would never hurt the family like I have. You put the family ahead of me – that I expected – but the real tragedy is that you put the family ahead of yourself. You say in your blog that you’re the person everyone calls when they are in trouble, but you have no one to call. I know I was supposed to be that person. I could have been that person that you could have called at 3am in the morning, if this family hadn’t tried to destroy me. I am sorry that the only way I could protect myself was to remove myself from them, and therefore you.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. And I know this is melodramatic, but it is also true – I love myself more. And yes, also melodramatic and also true, that family was killing me.

But I still miss you. I still wish I was in your life and you were in mine.

Tarot

I was wandering the campus and saw a Tarot dealer waiting for customers. So for a bit of fun I sat down and the first thing she asked me was about my mother (whom I have no contact with seeing as she is still married to the man who sexually, physically and emotionally abused me. Oh and she doesn’t believe me, even though she witnessed some of the abuse. No I’m not angry AT ALL).

Anyway, apparently I am working too hard (true). Apparently I am financially secure (true). Apparently my grandmother is about to pass away (will let you know), and I’ll find a man in the next three months (will also let you know). Then she talked about auras and how I had an angel over my shoulder that was protecting me. And then I drew six cards and two of them were about divine protection.

So I’m willing to take all this with a grain of salt, but what amazed me is how happy I was to know that I was protected. I am obviously still very scared of my step-father and mother and my mother’s family. I still dream about them every night. I feel like I can’t escape them. But at least (according to the tarot) I am protected from them.

FOI is a waste of time

I made a statement of sexual abuse against my step-father at the age of ten years old. I told my father – who lived in a different state (both physically and mentally) to my mother. I told him on an access visit. So there are four different types of FOI documents I was chasing up – the police document for state 1 (let’s call it Victoria), the child services document for state 1, and both the above for state 2 (let’s call it QLD).

I requested access to my FOI documents around eight months ago. It is supposed to take 45 days. Four months later I was told there was no Victorian police FOI document – it had been lost. A month later I received the child services document from Victoria – 120 odd pages. Very interesting reading. I’ll add some quotes to this blog at some point.

Three months down the track I get a letter saying that there are no QLD police documents, even though that was the state in which I made my first statement. A month later I receive the child services document. It was 15 pages long – a lot of it redacted, and contained absolutely nothing of use.

When I had the recent flashback of oral rape I made another statement to the police (on top of the four statements I made in May and June 2008). The police officer on my case rang all grumpy, wanting to know why I hadn’t made the statement before. I tried to explain about flashbacks but gave up and gave him my psychologist’s and psychiatrist’s details. He ended up taking a statement from my psychologist (which was a first for her!) and c0onfided that it was difficult to prosecute because the Victorian police files from when I was ten had been lost.

Damned meds

Well my excessive sleepiness (sleeping 10pm to 7am and then falling asleep from 9am to 2pm, or if I manage to stay awake in the morning, sleeping from midday to 6pm) may be due to the new meds that I started.

Unfortunately, starting the new meds coincided with my flashback so I wasn’t too sure what to attribute the sleepiness to. But I’m pretty sure it is the meds and not some psychosomatic disorder where I can’t face the world so decide to sleep through it.

Ironically it was my psychiatrist who thought it was psychosomatic, and my psychologist who thought it was due to the meds. Mind you my psychologist saw me at my very worst – I actually fell asleep while talking to her. I think even the word narcolepsy was used!

Anyway I have reduced the number of meds that I take in the morning and thus far I have only slept about half an hour (and that was when my brother was driving). Seeing as I woke up at 4.30am I’m putting that down to a normal course of events.

Too tired to write

I know I’ve been quiet for awhile now. I’ve been having weird nightmares (last night I was married to Madonna!) and having trouble sleeping at night and trouble staying awake during the day.
I’m stressed – I have a lot of work on, and I don’t think it bodes well for my mental health.
I’m seeing my psychologist tomorrow and my psychiatrist the day after to see what, if anything, can be done. I had a training session today and the trainer took me aside and told me to go home because I was “so obviously struggling”. I was eating lollies to try and keep awake and I actually fell asleep in the middle of eating a fantale and woke up choking! It was absolute bliss to come home and sleep for six hours. And it’s only four hours later and I’m exhausted again.
So off to bed for me.

The wonders of modern medicine

I’ve had a rough week. Flashback last Tuesday, zombie on Wednesday, due to taking Seroquel with Zeldox (slept most of the day). Police statement on Thursday morning, followed by thorough compartmentalising into a box in my brain that said “Don’t open” Thursday due to running an all day training session. Friday, compartmentalisation held, as it did Saturday – because I was away at a conference.

Saturday night I talked about it to a friend, and guess what? Had a nightmare. Sunday I was so tired I just slept and slept. Sunday night I had another horrific nightmare – this time that I was at my childhood home, waiting for my step-father to come home and pummel me. He used to do that quite often. I was terrified – I had forgotten how much of my life I lived in fear.

Monday I talked to my psychiatrist and she put me back on Dexamethasone. Monday I was hyperactive, but working from home, so was at least not appearing crazy to my workmates and also managing to get a lot of work done.

Monday night I couldn’t sleep – which is a peculiar effect of the Dexamethasone. Tuesday (2nd day of Dexamethasone) I went to work and I was tired. So I had a Berocca and then I had a coffee and all of a sudden I was hyper hyper-active girl. I had a meeting with a client and I was buzzing. I probably appeared high. My work colleague even took me up on it as soon as the meeting was finished.

So must remember to work from home when on the first and second day of Dexamethasone.

Tuesday night I took a double dose of sleeping tablets and slept six hours straight – waking refreshed for the first time in a week. Yesterday I even did a bit of exercise. I managed to control myself at work, but I was still pretty hyper.

Last night I was exhausted from all the previous sleep deprivation, so I went to bed at 9pm and woke every hour until 1am, when I couldn’t get back to sleep. I took another dose of my sleeping tablet but it made no difference and I lay on the couch watching ‘Good Morning America’ until 4am. Then I slept until 6.30am and got up to go to work – where I am an hour and a half early. I just don’t want to be in my house any more. I don’t want to be in my bedroom any more. I want out.

My house is a mess – I haven’t done any dishes or shopping since my flashback. I was going to spend this afternoon tidying up, but I don’t know if I have the energy. Maybe I should just sleep. But I don’t want to be there.

I felt a little like this last time I took the Dexamethasone. It goes away with time. I just need to give it time.